KFC Pulls "Racist" Australian TV spot

Okay. Reshoot the ad for Americans.

Opening shot is bleachers full of striped shirted Yankee fan cheering with one Red Sox fan sitting down amongst them.
Cut to: Mid shot Red Sox fan
RSFan (to Camera): Ever stuck in an awkward situation?
Cut to:
Tight shot of RSfan reaching down for bucket of KFC product.
Cut to:
Medium shot of hands reaching into bucket held high.
Cut to:
RSfan (to Camera): "Ah, the perfect solution"
Cut to:
Wide shot of Yankee fans shoving KFC product down RSfan's pants, pouring beer over his head and smacking him with the bucket.

Cut to Black.

Joe(next: the Boston version)Nation

Yes...but the entire point of there being a lone Aussie cricketer in a crowd of fervent Windies supporters would be lost!!!

It only creates that feeling because you don't understand the cricket culture. Hell, it took ages for me to get it, cos I am not really part of cricket culture.

For the audience it is intended for, there is no difference whether it is a crowd of English supporters, Windies supporters, Paskistan supporters, or Indian or the South Africans!

Hell, there's even cricket in the US....there's a fabulous novel out revolving around cricketers in Manhattan.

It's because you generalize sensitivities peculiar to your culture, and project them onto everyone else.

You're no orphans in doing so, but it's still a pain in the bum and ignorant.

What's an RS fan?

Oh bullshit. You are just the Queen of Political Rectitude judgments. What a creep.

Australia catagorically does NOT have big problems with race issues Ebrown. There is a small minority of dissafected socially disadvantaged and ignorant people who blame other cultures for their own failings and its my guess that would be pretty much the same in any culture or country.

Red Sox. The major league baseball team in Boston is the Red Sox, an American League team (there are two "leagues," the American League and the National League). The American League major league baseball team in New York is the New York Yankees. A long standing rivalry.

That's funny!!!

KFC trumpets southern US culture!

Cool!! Thanks.

We actually have some people playing baseball here now.


Interesting if Joe's example helps people really "get" that race is irrelevant here.

I agree. I know nothing of cricket and I understand in another part of the world the ad is just funny. I'm seeing it with the eyes of a white American who is just old enough to remember the American race riots and freedom marches of the 60's. The ad was pulled because of this US perception and not because it's really racist.

Yes...and can you see why that is a bit irksome? Given the ad was never intended for USians?

I don't think it's a huge thing or anything, but it is cultural imperialism.

I was enormously emotionally involved in those events in the US, too (although clearly not as involved as you guys were!) and I usually have a lot of time for US race sensitivities.

This gets under my skin a bit, though.

Certainly Americans associate fried chicken with the "Old South." But it never had, to my knowledge, a racial association. With regard to Kentucky Fried Chicken, my only reaction when it first because a wide-spread and successful enterprise was to wonder why anyone would think that fried chicken from Kentucky in particular was "superior," or exemplary of the best fried chicken. In those days, Harlan Sanders still owned KFC (he's the guy who is represented in the KFC logo), and i later learned his story. He had begun his business selling his product to grocery store owners from the back of his station wagon, and parlayed it through franchising into a major corporation. He sold his business in the 1970s for $76,000,000 US, which is pretty damned good money now, and was an enormous sum more than 30 years ago. And KFC is popular all over the United States, not just in the South; furthermore, it's popular with just about any Americans who are not fanatical vegetarians, without regard to skin color.

Hell, it's popular in Canada, too. But Popeye's is much better, and i suspect has stolen major market share from KFC.

this is a great example of how this society has pledged ( silently ) to make everything PC and is just getting absolutely ridiculous.

though.. on the flip side, because I live in this country and am bombarded with how every little thing means racisim... that ad? Made me gasp for a second.
And then I died laughing because i could see how every person in america was going to freak out about a white person giving chicken to a black crowd.


But ...

thats just god damn ridiculous. This country needs to wake up and stop making everything about race. Just because a decision is made in the tone of being PC does not make it any less racist. This country is feeding racism and handing it off to everyone who will listen then sitting back and smiling because they removed a commercial with one white and several blacks as if that is something to be proud of.

Gads.
I always say racism is not alive in this country anymore.

Being PC is and frankly it is getting scarier by the minute.

It's the colonel stuff that makes it associated with the south, I think.

Well, I think PC is often just forcing folk to think a bit, and be sensitive to other's histories and experiences....but this isn't about US history or experiences!

I am glad you got a laugh.

I can we see we need to get an education and PC movement going to raise US consciousnesses about cricket, so they don't get their panties in a wad about nothing!!!

Your country has deeply offended cricket lovers, I hope you realise, and I suspect they are gonna sue and demonstrate and have sit-ins and such.

Their culture has been mightily disrespected.

You guys are cricketist!

Since when did political incorrectness become "moral courage"? This is silly.

For the record, I don't take offense at the ad . But look at what happened...

1. An American company (whose sole purpose is to make money selling food) makes an ad.
2. Some people (apparently in the US) take offense at the ad and say so publicly.
3. The company pulls the ad.

Why is any part of this process wrong?

We are always going to have these disagreements about what is offensive or not. Public discussion is a good thing. People should speak out when they feel offended- that is how our society evolves.

Profit making companies are supposed to respond to their audience. Why wouldn't they pull an ad that many of their customers found offensive? Their job is not to stand firm against social change... their goal is to make their customers happy.

Race issues to be worked out. You do this by understanding that there are different points of view and by having public discussion. Corporations like KFC that sell food are wise to duck out of these disputes.

This whining about "political rectitude"-- the idea seems to be that minorities who are upset about something should just shut up.

bullshit

not to sound like pamela rose here, but when a few white kids beat up a black kid, al sharpton (and really if the black community wants to help it's image, they'd dump him pronto) and to a lesser degree (since he seems to want to court some political leanings) jesse jackson, jump into the fray screaming racism, but rarely, if at all, do they have anything to say if the roles are reversed, apart from look how poorly our brothers are being treated by the man

interesting that in 2007, when a noose was found on the office door of a black professor from columbia university, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,300597,00.html it was headline news, a travesty, another media sweep for al sharpton, however last year when a black male professor (interestingly enough from columbia as well) punched a white female coworker in the face during a discussion about race, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/prof_busted_in_columbia_gal_punch_JmsXQ3NzaAt8uG6uUySGTN crickets, nothing, the story got buried

that does it.

Im going to make a commercial with real live crickets eating fried chicken.

I am not sure how many people will get it...but it seems a worthy project!

May I add that cricket lovers are prone to get out of control, and I suspect they may be on their way to the US! They're mad and they aren't gonna take it any more.

Remember the Krikkit wars in Hitch Hikers'Guide?

Gibbers...

DJ,

Are you making the argument that being white (and male and straight) in the United states is a disadvantage?

If you are not making this argument, then I don't think disagree with you (although in that case I don't see your point).

(Setanta... if you would be so kind as to explain to DJ why the noose is a particularly troubling symbol in American history.)